New York Times Editorial – Help Wanted: Leadership – Thomas Friedman – 9/24/11

I take issue with several of his points.

Grand Bargain: He states we’re all in agreement we need a grandbargain to get out of this mess. Not true.

No Compromise: He states both parties seem to have concluded no compromise is possible. Not true.

GOP Wants Obama to Fail: He states republicans want Obamato fail, this from the get go. Not true.

It’s no wonder democrats admonish for compromise, a grand bargain in Mr. Friedman’s words, and demonize those who don’t. They own the process. It’s a huge success strategy for them, an ongoing process to win their way. The Right lost its big picture perspective long ago, failing to appreciate how devastating the slow creep of liberalism would be, especially when combined with the 4-pronged onslaught of a biased media, entertainment industry, academia and burgeoning entitlement class.

The Right has participated in this left-favoring process to its detriment. No more, Mr. Friedman. There can be no grand bargain because your Left has had its day. They’ve taken virtually everything leaving nothing on the Right’s table with which to bargain.

On compromise in general, I would argue democrats have been much more adept at the process, owing to a variety of factors. Just think how far left America has moved since the days of Herbert Hoover. One must acknowledge a fundamental shift has been at work to socialize government, promulgate a welfare state and re-distribute wealth.

If you think of the left-right continuum as a balance beam, one must allow we were somewhere right of middle in the 1920’s, and this center-right orientation was working brilliantly to grow America, beckoning a vast influx of the world’s impoverished to our shores, stimulating the economy to create jobs, encouraging a quickly-emerging middle class, and fulfilling the promise of the American Dream.

Even through FDR’s era America remained center-right, continuing to thrive and prosper, growing the middle and upper middle class and creating tens of thousands of new millionaires.

Mr. Friedman will probably argue we were much farther right than I suggest, in dire need of centering. Put the fulcrum/point of equilibrium where you will, we still can agree it was at right, and we’ve been pulling it slowly left ever since.

Today the amount of government intrusion into GDP has more than doubled. After Obamacare (if it holds up) it will have tripled! The only interpretation is we passed the midpoint/balance point of political ideology long ago, now being on the left side of the beam.

The right now negotiates from a point left of center, and with each new deal slides evermore left.

In this predicament everything skews left. How can republicans be expected to compromise, unless it works to their favor? And I’ve already argued it won’t, being the very reason they now find themselves in this fix.

If compromise was a valid (fair?) process we would have gravitated over time to the middle and today most of us would be centrists/moderates marginalizing the extremes. This didn’t happen, inspite of great success and workability as a center-right nation. Due to an increasing media bias and growing political correctness, there came to be an ever-increasing torgue pulling left. Those who tend right can no longer be equaniminous about their new status as the right side of left! They feel alarm at their predicament, realizing too late they haven’t been compromising at all; only compromised!

Republicans/conservatives have learned the hard way over the past 90 years compromise doesn’t work. Democrats/liberals still rely on it to get their way, still expect to squeeze a few more yards on the old balance beam, which we can now visualize as tilting down and left, at a 45 degree angle . .

Mr. Friedman’s boldest, most callous point is republicans wanted this president to fail right from the start. We all know, as a general sentiment, this holds true for both parties when their opposites rule. Nothing new here. But to levy the specific charge their posturings and every strategy have been to undermine his administration and precipitate this economic calamity is beyond the pale.

Saying this is to say they’re racists. I can think of no other interpretation, besides the general competitiveness already mentioned. I suspect Mr. Friedman knows this full well, but deliberately employs a duplicitous, unfair stance to punctuate his personal politics.

Republicans understand we’re at a juncture where compromise is no longer possible. They’ve been compromised to the wall, with no place left to go. The country must move right, to divert a disaster. Liberals remaining steadfast must this time yield, either to the process or to the will of the People. It can be no other way.